


i have loved you for the last time

by romanvacation



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, So much angst, aka in which brad is a disaster, always angst, and has about a million regrets, sorry in advance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 18:47:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21020516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanvacation/pseuds/romanvacation
Summary: brad wishes they could trade places. he would do it in a heartbeat. patrice doesn’t deserve to go like this. he’s supposed to be an old, gray-haired man. he’s supposed to have his family around him — kids and grandkids, signs of a life well-lived.





	i have loved you for the last time

**Author's Note:**

> song inspiration for this is “visions of gideon” by sufjan stevens.

it’s weird. seeing patrice like this. he doesn’t even look like the same person — all pale and fragile and there are about a million tubes coming out of him, each one doing something to try and keep him going for just another day. 

brad hasn’t heard his voice in a week, hasn’t been able to tell patrice that he loves him and see that look he gets, the one where he’s almost saying _how did i manage to get you_, even though it’s a common bit among the guys that patrice is very out of the stratosphere that is brad’s league.

he’d give anything just to hear patrice’s voice right now, because he’s been sitting in a chair by the bed for what feels like an eternity, clutching his butterfly hand, thinking maybe if he stays here long enough, he’ll wake up.

nurses come in every so often to take his vitals, and brad has gotten into the habit of asking how patrice is doing, but they just try to smile sympathetically and say that they’re doing everything they can. it’s the same answer every time, but it’s the only way brad can really keep track of how much time has gone by.

he falls asleep eventually. he doesn’t know when, but it’s late enough that reruns of “friends” are playing on the tv, just faintly enough to be background noise, but he’s woken up by a sound that’s different — jarring — not at all the sound of the tv, and it takes a second for brad to realize that all of the machines hooked up to patrice are going off, and then there are nurses running into the room, and he’s is trying to make sense of what’s going on, trying to ask if patrice is okay, which he is very clearly not, but a nurse is taking him by the arm and exiling him down the hall to the waiting room.

the door closes, and brad can still hear the sound of all pitches of beeping as the nurse is leading him away, a terrible, awful cacophony of what feels like a nightmare — a symphony of his life falling apart.

the nurse deposits him into a chair, and brad is only half-aware of what’s going on, and he can’t bring himself to ask how patrice is doing, because he’s not sure he wants to hear the answer.

he sits there with his head in his hands for eternity, unable to bring himself to call patrice’s mom or their friends to give them an update on how he’s doing, because he doesn’t even know what he would say — _pat is about to die_ doesn’t sound too good.

he can’t fall back asleep. not right now. not when he doesn’t know what’s going on or even if patrice is ever going to wake up again, a thought that makes him feel like he’s going to be sick.

he has to stand up and lean over the trashcan in the waiting room, squeezing his eyes shut and praying he’ll just throw up so he won’t have to feel like this anymore.

he can’t live without patrice. and that’s what he’s afraid of.

he’s afraid of living in a world where patrice isn’t there next to him when he wakes up, where he burns breakfast and forgets his entire schedule for the day, where he can’t tell patrice he loves him a hear it back. a world where he doesn’t know who he wants to spend the rest of his life with anymore.

and he’s never told him that either, because brad is a dumbass.

he empties what little he had for lunch into a trashcan. just gross hospital food. and he decides to make a deal with god, gritty, whoever’s up there, that if — when — patrice wakes up, he’ll give him a ring right then and there. he’ll tell him exactly how he feels. just as long as he wakes up, just as long as brad can see him again.

it’s then that the nurse comes to get him, and for once in the past week, brad thinks that this is the first good news he’ll be getting.

that’s before he sees patrice, because he somehow looks ten times worse than he did before, as if the past hour — two hours? three, maybe? brad isn’t sure how long he’s been outside — has taken a toll on him, and he just seems so tired. tired of fighting.

and as if to confirm that it’s as bad as it looks, the nurse tells him to sit down in that gentle, quiet voice, and brad has no choice but to listen to what she says, even though he wants to run out of the room just so he doesn’t have to hear it.

his brain shuts down, and the only things he can manage to catch are: _goodbye...his family...nothing...i’m sorry..._

it’s his worst nightmare playing out.

sometimes people will say that it feels like the breath has been knocked out of their lungs, and you think it’s just a cliché until you feel it, like you’ve been kicked right in the chest. it’s that sensation mixed with the feeling of being underwater, and everything is moving in slow motion.

the nurse pats his arm as if that’s going to offer any comfort and leaves the room, closing the door behind her with a quiet click.

and then it’s silent. except for the occasional faint beeping and the rattling sound of patrice’s shallow breaths, like he’s just hanging by a thread. and he is.

brad wishes they could trade places. he would do it in a heartbeat. patrice doesn’t deserve to go like this. he’s supposed to be an old, gray-haired man. he’s supposed to have his family around him — kids and grandkids, signs of a life well-lived.

it isn’t fair.

it isn’t fair that brad is sitting here trying to figure out how he can properly say goodbye to the love of his life.

he sits down and takes patrice’s hand in his, listening to his faint, rattling breaths, and tries to put himself together for just a little while, just long enough to try and tell patrice what he should’ve told him before all of this.

“remember when—“ he breaks off, looking up at the ceiling, blinking back burning tears. there’s a minute or so before he takes a breath and tries to continue. “remember when i first asked you to go on a date with me? and you thought i was joking. you said you didn’t think there was any way that i was really interested in you. and you were so genuine too. because you don’t know how fucking _amazing_ you are, patrice. it was like you couldn’t even believe it, and i thought you were going to say no.” brad lets out a kind of breathy laugh, tears streaking down his cheeks now.

“but you said yes. and i’m sorry. i’m so sorry, pat, because you still don’t know how amazing you are, and that’s my fault. i should’ve told you more, should’ve made sure that you knew how much i love you, how i want to spend my life with you. and you deserve better than that.”

the words hang in the air, settle there and fill the room with weight. brad can’t fall asleep again. not when patrice is dying. so he stays awake, clutching his hand, trying to stop wondering and worrying if it’s patrice’s last breath, because he wants to focus on now. these last few hours he has with him.

patrice passes away shortly after. six twenty-three in the morning, just as the sun is coming up.

brad is right there next to him, holding his hand, and patrice’s family is there too, all waiting and hoping that maybe the doctors were wrong. until there’s longer and longer between each breath, and there’s one last rattling sound, slow, faint, like a failing engine, and brad knows that he’s gone.

it’s the worst moment of his life. easily.

it’s like everything in him shatters. like that window he broke when he was a kid. and he doesn’t know what to do. where to go from here.

all he knows is that he should’ve done better. should’ve told patrice how much he meant to him when he had the chance, because now he’s gone, and brad is utterly and completely lost without him.

**Author's Note:**

> so that’s that.
> 
> hope you liked it. my tumblr is pride-and-petulance/rasksmoustache.


End file.
